Scott stays in role as Florida pitchman during hour on CNBC

Gov. Rick Scott
spent Monday morning co-hosting CNBC’s Squawk Box and generally stuck to his
economic talking points, though there was also lighter discussion of Disney
World, college football and Austrian space jumper.

“People know it’s all about the economy,” Scott said,
discussing the presidential election. “I think they can see a difference
between what the federal government’s doing and what we’re doing” in Florida.

Scott was comfortable in his role as Florida’s pitchman, at one time giving out
his phone number and telling business owners to “call me.”

Despite the fact that Florida
has a lower growth rate than 24 other states and is creating jobs more slowly
than the national average, Scott painted a picture of a Florida that is a national leader in job
growth. (Florida’s
unemployment rate decline is besting other states, but not
because of stellar job growth. Many
people have left a labor market that is worst in the country for long-term
unemployment.

At the end of the his hour on set, Scott said, “Jobs are
coming back (in Florida)
faster than other places. It’s Texas and Florida that are the two
fastest growing states,” a statement that flies in the face of most objective
data. Florida is ranked 25th in the
nation with a 1.1 percent growth rate over the last year, compared to 1.4
percent in the U.S.

Scott may have cherry-picked the month of August, when Florida gained 23,200 jobs, second only to Texas. But even that
would not be the second-fastest growth rate, because some smaller states grew
jobs faster, per capita, than Florida
did in August.

Because of Florida’s
large population, it can boast of greater total number of jobs, while growing
more slowly than smaller states with more impressive growth rates.

For example, Florida’s
monthly growth rate was 0.3 percent in August, when 23,200 jobs were created. North Dakota only created 1,700 jobs in August, but
because of its small population, those 1,700 jobs constituted a faster growth
rate (0.4 percent) than Florida.

Bonus:

In the second half of the show, University
of Florida president Bernie Machen
joined the set to talk about the effort to make Florida more friendly to technology
companies.

Scott talked about putting money into science, technology,
engineering and math as a way to help establish a talent pool within Florida and draw more companies to set up shop in the Sunshine State.